What is Tor? Browser, network and limits
Tor routes connections through several relays. Learn how Tor Browser works, who can see what, and where its protection ends.
What is Tor, and what is Tor Browser?
Tor is a network that obscures the connection path between you and a website. Tor Browser is the browsing application that uses this network and also makes browser recognition harder.
Reading leaves traces
Opening a website is not quite like quietly turning a page in a book. Connections and recognition signals can reveal something about your interests.
Network and browser
Think of a transport network and a vehicle: the network consists of relays, while the browser is your tool for using it. Tor Browser is not a search engine. A search engine is a website that receives the search terms you submit.
Your connection
An IP address is an address on the network. It may reveal a connection and an approximate region; it is not a unique personal name.
Your visit
A website processes your requests and entries. A search engine knows the search terms you send it.
Your return
Accounts, cookies and browser characteristics can link visits. Not every website uses all of these methods.
Who sees what?
HTTPS encrypts content between your browser and the website. It protects search terms, page contents and passwords in transit. The website itself still needs to process that information.
You
You know what you search for and read. Traces may also remain on your device.
Your network provider
Knows your connection and the destination IP. The visited domain can often also be identified. Specific pages, search terms and passwords stay encrypted in transit with HTTPS.
The website
Sees your connection’s IP and your requests. If you sign in, it can associate the visit with your account.
What does Tor change?
Tor separates the view of your connection from the view of the destination website. Tor Browser sends the connection through several volunteer-operated intermediate servers, called relays. For HTTPS websites, the connection remains encrypted all the way to the website.
HTTPS in both cases
Content is encrypted between browser and website — including beyond the Tor exit.
Ordinary browsing
HTTPS- Network provider sees
- Destination IP, often domain
- Website sees
- Your connection’s IP
With Tor Browser
HTTPS- Network provider sees
- Connection to Tor
- Website sees
- Tor exit IP
Signed in? The website knows your account in both cases.
Simplified comparison for ordinary HTTPS websites. Onion services do not use an exit to the open web. HTTPS does not hide every connection detail.
Network provider
Can recognise that you are using the Tor network with a direct Tor connection, but cannot directly see the destination website.
Website
Sees the Tor exit’s IP address instead of your connection’s IP. It still recognises a login or personal details you choose to share.
Shared-out knowledge
The entry knows your IP; the exit knows the destination. No single ordinary relay therefore receives both. Observing several points remains a limitation.
Why is it called onion routing?
Outgoing data gets several layers of encryption. Each relevant relay removes its layer and learns the next step. Imagine envelopes inside envelopes, opened by different couriers. This analogy explains how knowledge is divided, not every technical detail.
Entry, middle and exit
A typical path to an ordinary website uses three relays. The entry sees your connection IP, the middle connects neighbouring relays, and the exit connects to the website. HTTPS protects content on the final leg as well. An onion site stays inside Tor and needs no such exit.
When does this help?
You do not need an extraordinary story to want privacy. Tor can help make your reading less directly linked to your connection — including on ordinary websites.
Learn at your own pace
You read about a personal health topic before deciding who you want to discuss it with.
Explore possibilities
You look into a career change without using a personal account for your first research.
Form your own opinion
You compare news and social perspectives instead of sharing your interests with every provider involved.
Where does protection end?
Tor can give you more room to choose. It cannot promise complete anonymity. What matters is which information you want to protect, and from whom.
A login is still a login
Your account identifies you to the website. A different IP address does not change that.
Recognition still matters
Tor Browser limits cookies across websites and makes fingerprinting, recognition through browser characteristics, harder. It cannot remove every link; personal disclosures and changed settings can weaken protections.
Your device is not automatically protected
Other apps do not automatically use Tor. A compromised device can expose data before it is encrypted.
An observer at both ends
Powerful observers can compare timing and traffic volumes at the start and end to associate connections. Tor cannot reliably prevent these correlation attacks.
Check your understanding
Mira reads a public article without logging in through Tor Browser. Her ordinary email app is running too. Does its connection now use Tor? No. And if Mira logs in on the article website, the site knows her account despite Tor.
Why can Tor be slower?
Extra relays, distance and network load can slow connections. A delay alone says nothing about your anonymity. Some services block Tor connections or show additional checks.
Sources and further reading
Last updated on 2026-10-13
